Is there a law forbidding “cornbread and buttermilk” to be used in the Lord’s Supper? If one is looking for a “Thou shalt not,” the answer is “no!” Read the New Testament through and you will never read the words, “Thou shalt not use cornbread and buttermilk in the Lord’s Supper.” So, let’s take this one more step, is there a law forbidding the use of “instrumental music” in worship of God? If you can answer the first question, then, you can answer the second question!
However, before dealing with either subject, let us show that Jesus taught by implication. Implication is a teaching where the hearer is forced to reached the implied conclusion! Jesus taught by implication when he said of God: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:32). Jesus never said, therefore; but he left it for those who heard him to reach the implied conclusion. So, what is the implication which Jesus taught? He taught implicitly that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were alive as he spoke!
Let us notice another case where Jesus taught by implication. Matthew records the event: “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit called him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? (Matt. 22:41-45). First, notice that Jesus never answered the question, but left it for those to whom he spoke to reach the implied conclusion. Thus, Jesus taught implicitly! But, what is the implied answer? David’s LORD is both his son according to the flesh, but also God, as in “the Word was made flesh” in John 1:1, 14. The Jewish leadership did not like this implication!
The person who desires to teach that we are free to take the Lord’s Supper on any day of the week, because he is unable to read, “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s Supper on Monday, Tuesday, etc; or you are ONLY authorized to take the Lord’s Supper upon the first day of the week,” fails to understand how things are authorized in “the teaching of Christ.” (This subject will be addressed in another article.) It is just this, “the teaching of Christ” authorizes! In its authority it commands, it forbids, and it allows. One must get all the parts (the teaching) from each passage that addresses the subject in order to get all that is authorized. In the case of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus and the disciples were eating the Jewish Passover which included unleavened bread and fruit of the vine; it is here that Jesus took the bread (unleavened) and said: “Take, eat; this is my body” then, he took the cup (fruit of the vine) and said: “Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” His conclusion was: “But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matt. 26:26-29). It must be noticed Jesus put this in the kingdom, as he says, “my Father’s kingdom!” Paul in writing to the Corinthians refers back to this event and writes: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come” (I Cor. 11:23-26). Therefore, we have the Lord’s Supper! Nothing else is authorized! As given by Paul, we are to have a prayer and eat the bread while remembering the Lord’s body, then, a second prayer and drink the fruit of the vine while remembering the Lord’s blood. There is the Lord’s Supper and nothing else is the Lord’s Supper! Nothing else is authorized; therefore, there is no authority to use “cornbread and buttermilk,” nor anything else, as everything else is forbidden!
Is there a law against “cornbread and buttermilk” in the Lord’s Supper? Yes! “The teaching of Christ” is a law which forbids all things not authorized; as John wrote “he that abideth in the teaching of Christ!” The Lord’s Supper and all that is the Lord’s Supper are clearly stated by the apostle Paul in First Corinthians chapter eleven; the apostle does not allow us to take cornbread and remember the body of Jesus and drink buttermilk and remember the blood of Jesus! By the law of nature, there is nothing in cornbread to remind us of the body of Jesus, just as there is nothing in the buttermilk to remind us of the blood of Jesus! However, by the nature of unleavened bread there is a remembrance of the body of Jesus and the fruit of the vine there is a remembrance of the blood of Jesus.
In “the teaching of Christ” (2 John 9) cornbread and buttermilk are forbidden as they are not within “the teaching of Christ!” One must go outside of “the teaching of Christ” in order to use cornbread and buttermilk in the Lord’s Supper! There is a law against it; it says loud and clear, “Thou shalt not” use cornbread and buttermilk in the Lord’s Supper to the person who desires to hear; just as Jesus said: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”
— Frank R. Williams